“That she’s my wife?”
“Oh, Thurso, don’t! All the worst of you spoke then. No, a pity that you feel like that. You are both such splendid people, really. And——”
“And I bore her, and she gets on my nerves,” he remarked.
Maud gave a little frown and gesture of disapproval.
“You should never say such things,” she said. “It is a mistake to say them just because they are—well, partly true. If they were untrue it would not matter. But to let yourself say a true thing, when that thing is a pity, only makes it more real. Speech confirms everything. Good gracious! if people would only hold their tongues on unpleasant topics, how the things themselves would improve! Oh, I am a philosopher.”
He looked at her with great tenderness and affection.
“Are you?” he said. “I like you, anyhow. Go on.”
Maud gave a long sigh.
“You don’t do her justice,” she said, “any more than she does you justice. You don’t allow for each other. And—Thurso, I don’t believe she is happy any more than you are.”
“Why do you think that? She carves forty-eight hours out of every day, and fills them all, while the world looks on in envious admiration. That is her ideal, and she always attains it. And even her husband claps his hands.”